{"id":1824,"date":"2008-08-28T07:07:58","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T07:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=1824"},"modified":"2025-06-07T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T16:18:41","slug":"why-trying-to-get-a-magazine-column-can-be-wasted-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/content-creation\/why-trying-to-get-a-magazine-column-can-be-wasted-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Why trying to get a magazine column can be wasted effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/maagzinesstackedup.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1825\" style=\"float: left;margin-left: 8px;margin-right: 8px\" title=\"maagzinesstackedup\" src=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/maagzinesstackedup-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Magazines stacked on top of each other\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>A freelance PR person just emailed me and asked, &#8220;Did you ever or\u00a0can you recommend a resource on how to become a magazine columnist?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I told her that several years ago, I wrote \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Special Report #34: Secrets to Becoming a Columnist in Newspapers and Magazines.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0It advises writers to offer columns for free and not ask for payment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The newspaper industry, and the magazine industry to some extent, has been battered since I wrote that report\u00a0about seven\u00a0years ago.\u00a0 Audiences are more fragmented than ever. Many\u00a0publications are\u00a0losing classified and\u00a0ad revenue because of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.craigslist.org\/about\/sites\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Craigslist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0pay-per-click ads.\u00a0Costs for paper and ink are rising and the news hole is shrinking. That\u00a0makes competition for a column more difficult than ever.\u00a0Readers, particularly of newspapers,\u00a0are getting older and dying off.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trying to get a column in a magazine, I told her,\u00a0can be\u00a0mostly\u00a0wasted effort, unless you&#8217;re targeting a B2B magazine that goes directly to your target market.\u00a0 Her\u00a0client would be\u00a0far better off blogging several times a week and offering blog content through an RSS feed.<\/p>\n<p>If you blog, you can really gain traction\u00a0because if your content is good,\u00a0other bloggers can\u00a0link to it.\u00a0Blogging can\u00a0offer exposure far greater than a magazines column. Besides,\u00a0journalists who work in traditional media may find the content and cover you as a result.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But these days, savvy Publicity Hounds think far beyond\u00a0traditional media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A freelance PR person just emailed me and asked, &#8220;Did you ever or\u00a0can you recommend a resource on how to become a magazine columnist?&#8221; I told her that several years ago, I wrote \u201cSpecial Report #34: Secrets to Becoming a Columnist in Newspapers and Magazines.\u201d\u00a0It advises writers to offer columns for free and not ask\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/content-creation\/why-trying-to-get-a-magazine-column-can-be-wasted-effort\/\" class=\"rmlink\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":16,"wds_primary_category":603,"footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[634,624],"class_list":{"0":"post-1824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-content-creation","7":"tag-craigslist","8":"tag-magazines","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41488,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions\/41488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}